Youngest woman ever elected to Congress can't afford an apartment in DC

This is somewhat troubling:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress—she still can't afford an apartment in D.C.

Abigail Hess
4 Hours Ago

One year ago, you could find Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez working behind the bar at Flats Fix, a small taqueria near Union Square. Come January, you will find her in Washington D.C., representing New York's 14th District as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

But just because she is making history, doesn't mean she is making money. Ocasio-Cortez recently revealed that she is currently unable to rent a D.C. apartment.

Her transition period will be "very unusual, because I can't really take a salary," she said in an interview with The New York Times. "I have three months without a salary before I'm a member of Congress. So, how do I get an apartment? Those little things are very real."
According to real-estate website Zillow, the median rent in Washington, D.C., is $2,700.

Thinking out of box here, generally I'm opposed to public servants/politicians changing their positions for lobbies money but in such an extreme case she may want to reconsider her positions on issues like foreign policy. You can't focus on serving people if you have to worry about rent end of every month. She seems to have some very wrong positions.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the insurgent firebrand who Tuesday toppled the No. 4 Democrat in the House of Representatives, is a strong critic of Israel who denounced the killings of Palestinian protesters as a “massacre.”

There is no shame in taking money from lobbyists; even one of the greatest MAGA moral leader who was rich beyond imagination and had ammased some of the greatest wealth world had ever seen, took funding from a respected Democrat billionaire. Nobody would fault a struggling former bartender turned public servant if she got few bucks from some globalist funder to make ends meet.

May 14, 2018 Mega-donor Adelson, with access and influence, scores two pro- Israel victories
These are heady days for casino billionaire and megadonor Sheldon Adelson.
A passionate and hawkish advocate for Israel with close ties to its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Adelson was in Jerusalem today for a celebration of the U.S. embassy’s relocation to that city, a longstanding priority for the mogul. Similarly, Adelson had pushed hard for President Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, which happened last week.
And the day after that announcement, Adelson quietly slipped into the White House for a private meeting with Trump and three top administration officials: Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and an Adelson favorite, National Security Adviser John Bolton, according to two conservative sources familiar with the previously unreported private event.

"Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
"War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

"Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
"War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

When South Dakota Republican Kristi Noem was looking for a new office at the beginning of this Congress, she knew she'd need one thing in particular: closet space.

Noem is one of dozens of lawmakers who, by day, work in the office buildings on the House side of the U.S. Capitol and, by night, live in them.

"There's storage in this room here for my blankets and pillows," Noem told NPR in a recent tour of her office in the Rayburn building.

These lawmakers say office living has some political benefit, but it's mainly a good way to save a buck in Washington.

Noem sleeps on a pullout in her office. She described her morning routine this way:

"There's a gym in the basement, so I get up in the morning and go down to the member's gym and work out with a group of people," she said. "And then I go to the women's gym and shower and put my makeup on and stuff and come back up here and get dressed."

Sleeping in the office is not without some hazards, Noem said. One night in her old office, she was working late on her laptop when an unwelcome visitor arrived.

A mouse.

Noem is a farmer and a rancher, but she freaked out. She called a male staffer back to the office to help catch the mouse. They couldn't find it, so for her peace of mind, she had him duct tape the bottom of her office door "so that it wouldn't come in while I was sleeping," she said.

The most prominent member of this "Couch Caucus"? Newly minted House Speaker Paul Ryan, who's been sleeping in his office for years.

The Wisconsin Republican told CNN's Dana Bash in a recent interview that he would keep doing it even if he is, now, second in line to the presidency.

"I'm just a normal guy," Ryan said.

"But normal guys don't sleep in their offices!" Bash replied.

Maybe it's not normal, but there are no rules against it.

There's also no official data on how many do it. Lawmakers estimate, though, that at least 40 House members sleep in their offices.

"I think there's more than you might expect," said Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., who sleeps on a futon in his office. "There's quite a few of us, particularly the younger members with young families back home in our districts. There's quite a few — men and women."

Noem is one of very few women who sleep in their office. Most of them are Republican men.

It's good politics, particularly among conservatives, to make it known back home they're not getting too comfortable in Washington. When Republican Bill Huizenga was campaigning for the Michigan seat vacated by Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra, for example, voters wanted to know three things, Huizenga told NPR.

"People would ask me: What am I going to do about spending, what am I going to do about Obamacare and am I sleeping on my couch like Pete," he said.

The transition was easy for Huizenga because, as he quipped, "I'm a cheap Dutchman."

A handful of Democrats sleep in their offices, too, though Illinois Congressman Mike Quigley said he's not trying to make a political statement.

Quigley started sleeping in his office, in part, to save money to put his two daughters through college. Every lawmaker NPR interviewed said saving money was the main reason they do it.

Members of Congress make $174,000 a year, but maintaining a residence in the neighborhoods around the U.S. Capitol can easily cost approximately $2,000 a month. That's a waste of money, these members said, if you're only staying in Washington a few nights a week — and keeping a house in your home state.

"Next year's schedule for the House activities? We're here 83 nights. So you're paying rent in a very expensive neighborhood for 282 nights you're not here," Quigley said.

Since next year is an election year, lawmakers will spend even less time in Washington, so sleeping in the office is not just practical, but maybe, also good politics.

Last edited by Zippyjuan; 11-12-2018 at 06:53 PM.

Donald Trump: 'What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening'

"Truth isn't truth"- Rudy Giuliani

"China has total respect for Donald Trump and for Donald Trump's very, very large brain," - Donald Trump.

"Yeah, I have to say these guys(trolls) are pretty sharp. Sort of good to get a challenge and sharpen your thoughts." NorthCarolinaLiberty

"Like scores of other members of Congress, most of them Republican, Mr. Ryan chooses to bed down on a cot in his office every night the House is in session. He chooses this over the speaker’s official palatial suite in the Capitol,
which Mr. Ryan has pointed out stinks thanks to smoke from its prior inhabitant, John A. Boehner.

So it is that he sleeps in his far smaller office in the Longworth House Office Building, one of three such buildings that over the years have become veritable homeless shelters for members of the House.

For the lawmakers, the choice is fiscal, practical and political. Many say they find Washington rental prices too high. Others say it allows them to work longer and harder hours, unfettered by commutes and the distraction of Jimmy Fallon."https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/u...in-office.html

Stop Sleeping in Your Offices, Members of Congress Told

It’s become an easy way of telegraphing your commitment to serve, but now a group of House Democrats are asking an ethics committee
to investigate the “legality and propriety” of members of Congress sleeping in their Capitol complex offices, suggesting the habit may be more about saving rent money than anything else.

Politico reports that more than two-dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus signed a letter questioning the practice, of which Speaker Paul Ryan is a leading advocate: “I get up very early in the morning. I work out. I work until about 11:30 at night. I go to bed. And I do the same thing the next day,” Ryan said in 2015 when asked whether he would continue sleeping in his office after becoming speaker. “It actually makes me more efficient. I can actually get more work done by sleeping on a cot in my office.” But CBC member Watson Coleman said office sleepovers unfairly gave “members an opportunity to live here rent-free using all the facilities.”https://www.thedailybeast.com/stop-s...-congress-told

Congressman Jeffrey Chaffetz (R - Utah 3rd) unpacks the cot in 2009

Freshman Congressman Sleeps on Cot

It's a recession version of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Rep. Jason Chaffetz, representing Utah's 3rd congressional district, promises to vote like a fiscal conservative and to live like one.Instead of renting a Washington, D.C., apartment, the Utah Republican plans to live in his Capitol Hill office to save money, while his family stays in their home in Alpine, Utah."You work hard into the night and then the last thing I want to do is spend $1,500 a month on a place I don't intend to be and a place I just plan to sleep at," said the freshman congressman.Chaffetz arrived in Washington this week, with his son Max, who helped unpack the car. Among his possessions is a cot, wrapped in a trash bag and duct tape, which Chaffetz plans to set up in his office. Total cost: $45.https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=6587327&page=1

BS. There are plenty of affordable housing options in the DC area... what she MEANS is she can't afford to live where she wants to live; or more aptly, she can't afford to live where she believes she's entitled to live.

They kidding? All that the scrawny commie-flake needs is do an online beg on one of the sites designed for that purpose. She'd have what she needs in 24. Shooot, she might even become a millionaire as a result.

I am confident gofundme.com would welcome her with open arms and open legs. Apologies to Roger Daltry & co.

Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

Yup, this...she now has a six figure job for life, or until she moves up the tax tick food chain.

President Cortez 2036

Come to think of it , I do not know anyone I grew up with that had a guaranteed income like that at such a young age . If you did it would have been joyless because it meant all your parents and grandparents died young and you were working 16 hours a day to run the farm/ranch/family business.

The trick is to find an office that has all the perks of an apartment. It's a more expensive office, but you can expense it as a work expense and you no longer need to rent an apartment. Everybody wins!

It's all about taking action and not being lazy. So you do the work, whether it's fitness or whatever. It's about getting up, motivating yourself and just doing it.

They kidding? All that the scrawny commie-flake needs is do an online beg on one of the sites designed for that purpose. She'd have what she needs in 24. Shooot, she might even become a millionaire as a result.

I figured that was the entire reason she made that statement in the first place. I'd be shocked if no one's started a gofundme to cover her expenses yet?